


the stars are coming out

by sodiumflare



Series: peacetime [1]
Category: Captive Prince - C. S. Pacat
Genre: Allusions to canon-typical violence, M/M, heavy-handed symbolism ahoy, welcome to the trauma bus
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-24
Updated: 2019-03-24
Packaged: 2019-11-29 12:36:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,356
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18223241
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sodiumflare/pseuds/sodiumflare
Summary: "I think," Laurent said into the silence, picking his words as though sifting through sand, "that perhaps I am not cut out for peace."





	the stars are coming out

_I thought this wouldn't happen again_ , Damen didn't say.

Laurent sat in the courtyard, the long shimmering plane of marble ending in a railing, and beyond, the smooth plane of the sea, glimmering starlight. Summer had truly passed but the nights weren't yet truly cold, in the in-between of the seasons. Laurent was wrapped to wrists anyway, his customary circlet discarded somewhere in their apartments. He was perched on a bench but leaned forward, resting his arms on the balcony rail, staring out at the sea. If Damen didn't know better, Laurent could have been anyone else - another boy under the night sky.

The coming conversation wasn't going to be easy, but it would go better if Laurent ddin't feel ambushed, so Damen didn't go out of his way to be quiet as he discarded his ceremonial cloak, sandals, crown. After a moment's consideration, he picked up two goblets and a pitcher of wine, brought them with him.

Laurent didn't visibly react to the sound of Damen's footsteps but tension shifted in his shoulders, and he turned to look as Damen set the glasses and pitcher down on the wide marble rail. Damen poured the wine, and Laurent watched the liquid, face blank as a sheet of ice.

"Is this," he said, "a test."

"It's wine," Damen said, took his own goblet.

Laurent looked back out at the sea, and for a long moment, Damen watched him watch the water. Far below them, waves crashed against the cliffs of Ios. In the corner of the eye, he saw Laurent take the cup, swirl the wine gently. Laurent had long ago schooled himself out of appearing anything less than immaculate, but Damen knew his edges, had been watching the faint but growing smudges under his eyes. Something had been consuming Laurent like a rot in a beam for weeks now. Maybe longer.

"It's cleaned up," Damen said mildly.

Laurent didn't respond, didn't stir.

"The trade dispute, I mean," Damen continued. "Vask has agreed to the grain tariffs in exchange for a new tax on iron, and Patras negotiated a staggered cotton tax, assuming tariffs total - a certain amount. Kristos has the details."

"That's good."

"It's satisfactory to all parties," Damen agreed. "But imagine how much simpler this would have been if someone hadn't kicked the hornets' nest on this in the first place."

Beside him, Laurent went carefully still. Still gazing out to the horizon, but his attention closer, now. Damen could feel it like building thunderheads, like an autumn storm about to break.

"Not hornets, I guess," said Damen. "Something more subtle. But. Someone put a bug in Kilvik's ear about grain, didn't they? Just as the first trade summit for all three countries since unification was ending, someone pulled a lever that nearly topped it for everyone."

"It'll mean more revenue for -" Laurent began.

"I know what the estimates are. I also know that we'd lose far more if the talks fell apart altogether. And they nearly did, because someone had an idle conversation with Kilvik about barley. Which lead to additional two weeks of talks, and the new agreement on wool quotas, and I'll have to send Nikandros to Vask for border exercises to ensure the Empress doesn't decide to take any of this personally."

He had started off calm, but Damen could hear the blood in his ears. He thought of mountains, a blindfold, shadowy bruises on white skin. "I can't prove it was you. Maybe it wasn't even you. Maybe you talked with someone else and they talked with Kilvik. But I know what your tactics look like, Laurent. They look like this."

Laurent was pale, it seemed - in the moonlight, it was hard to tell, but against the dark velvet of his jacket and the gleaming white of the bench, Laurent looked carved from bone. Damen shivered in the chilling air.

Laurent swirled his goblet again, stared at the red wine.

"I think," Laurent said into the silence, picking his words as though sifting through sand, "that perhaps I am not cut out for peace."

Damen sucked in a breath. "It was tariffs."

"This time," Laurent said, looked away to the sea.

Knitting Akielos and Vere together into the New Artesian Empire had taken two years of careful, patient diplomacy, two marriages, more than a dozen individually negotiated fostering arrangements, and a hunting agreement over Delpha that Makedon was still angry about. And Laurent had engineered nearly all of it; Damen had been busy with the kyros, rebuilding the government after Kastor's coup.

"The ink on the treaty is barely dry," he said.

"That's crossed my mind," Laurent said, jaw tight.

 _Look at me_ , Damen thought. But Laurent wouldn't. Not until he wanted to.

"What do you think it would take to bring Vask to war?" Laurent asked conversationally into the silence.

Vask had slept for centuries, little concerned with happenings outside its borders. While Laurent and Damen valued Vannes' acerbic counsel, her power came more from her own indomitability than from the throne behind her. As a general rule, if it was outside Vask, Vask didn't care.

"I don't know," Damen said.

"I do," said Laurent. "I can't not. And I-" he scrubbed a hand over his face, suddenly impossibly young. "I think I can't stop." He laughed humorlessly. "You ought to be - lucky it was just trade. I can't _not think_ -"

Laurent broke off, blinking furiously and suddenly young in the face of the admission. Not for the first time, Damen saw him as he might have been, young and bookish and sweet. Before Laurent was pared down to his quicksilver core, before he made himself into a knife. Before everything.

"Laurent," Damen said helplessly, "you don't have to do this anymore. We can't do this anymore."

Laurent laughed a little at that, bitter as the dregs at the bottom of a cup. "I know that." His eyes were years away.

Damen thought of old soldiers he had known, of the families of Delpha - people so accustomed to the war that they became it. "You're a war horse," he heard himself say.

That, at least, knocked Laurent somewhat back into himself. "I beg your pardon?"

"Makedon had a horse," Damen said. "When I was a child. A charger."

"You must have been kindered spirits," Laurent said, but without his usual vinegar the effect was petulance instead of venom.

Damen ignored it. "The horse had been retired from the battlefield for years, should have been set to sire and maybe carry Makedon's grandchildren around but - it couldn't stop. It only knew how to fight, so it fought. It terrorized the stables, ran the mares into panic, kicked the stableboys. Until -"

"Did it bite you?" Laurent asked with a veneer of fascination, and Damen knew Laurent didn't want to hear how the story ended.

"Not me," Damen said tiredly.

"But someone."

"Yes," Damen said, "and killed two trainers. Then Makedon had to make a decision."

Laurent let the words hang between them in the night air. "The animal was destroyed."

"Yes," Damen said. "I have never seen Makedon so distraught, before or since."

Below them, the surf pounded against the cliffs.

"I am not a war horse," Laurent said, eventually, again staring into his cup. "I will not -"

"I know," Damen said, thought _I will not let you_ , and suddenly the space between them on the marble bench in the moonlight was unbearable. Setting down his cup on the rail, Damen reached for him. "Laurent, can I -"

Beside him, Laurent didn't speak, but turned towards him - the closest Laurent generally got to an invitation in this mood. Damen pulled Laurent to him, hands fisting in the cool velvet of Laurent's jacket, breathing him in in the salt ocean air.

"I could have made it worse," Laurent said, abruptly, half-muffled in Damen's shoulder. "I thought about it. I could have - tied the negotiations into knots. So many more."

"It's okay," Damen said. "I untangled them." _This time_ , he thought.

Beneath his hands, Laurent was unmoving. Damen buried his face in Laurent's neck, in the smooth skin above his collar, and held on.

**Author's Note:**

> Title from The Mountain Goats' "Never Quite Free":
> 
> _See the sunset turning red_  
>  _Let all be quiet in your head_  
>  _And look about—all the stars are coming out_  
>  _They shine like steel swords_


End file.
